I took Reese this past Friday to be evaluated for speech therapy. I didn’t realize until I started looking into therapy for him that the school you are zoned for offers speech therapy services, even if you don’t attend there. This was great news.
The speech therapist asked Reese what toys he wanted to play with when we got there, so to him this was a little overwhelming. The room was filled with bookcases with toy after toy. He was in heaven! The therapist suggested a tub of Playmobil toys. (which Santa has made a note that Reese loved playing with.)
As Reese began playing with the toys, the therapist would ask him to say different words. He did just as I thought he would. He cannot say his “S” and “Z” sounds at the beginning and end of words. Unfortunately he did not qualify for therapy though because to qualify the child must not be able to say three or more sounds at a level one year behind what age he is at now. For example, Reese would have to not be able to say three or more sounds that a three year old should be able to say. Because the “S” and “Z” sounds are at age 5 and 7 (depending on what part of a word they are in) he didn’t qualify. The therapist did give me some worksheets to work with him at home on, and there is always private therapy we can look into, but I am going to see what I can do first.
Saturday, I sat down with Reese and we worked on a worksheet. It is a sheet with 20 pictures on it, in little boxes. I talked to him about how to keep his tongue locked up behind his teeth and we began with each picture. For each one he got correct, I laid a penny on top of it. I told him at the end that I had a small candy bar that cost 15 cents and he needed to see if he had enough pennies to pay for it. He loved counting the pennies out and realizing he had enough to pay for one.
The funny part of our time working on the worksheet was when it came to the word sit. He used to say what sounded more like “thit”. Well he has now progressed to what came out as a distinctive “S&IT”. He said it over and over. I just had to smile at him and say “Very good.” Needless to say, we will keep working on it. I can’t have my 4 year old cussing.
4 comments:
Oh, come on, Mom! It's so much fun when they do it in church! :) Shey will still say yellow, lellow, sometimes. The other day, Larry went by Yogurt Land and Shey yelled out, Hey! Logurtland!
We have had to work with Todd on is speech for a few years. His hardest sound was R which he has finally got but we paid for private speech this summer. Save up because it is not cheap (atleast in this area)! You may want to look at a company called Super Duper Publications (www.superduperinc.com). They have lots of fun games to help with speech sounds. It was a great deal of help to us and it is often what the therapist use.
You are doing great working with him! I wanted to suggest a tool I have found to be very successful in working with my daycare children -
try speechtails.com. I really love it! Good Luck!
Thanks everyone for the resources. I will be sure and check them out.
(and yes Carrie, it is expensive here too...ugh!)
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